Hi ladies ~ I appreciate your advice ahead of time!
My husband has been in a 2 1/2 year affair, we finally seperated about 6 months ago when he began just blatently staying with her on weekends after I knew about this. At first I thought we'd be able to work it out because he seemed confussed and still loved me but wanted to take a different path. (See "mid-life" crisis in the dictionary and there's his picture!) He and I had an increadable love affair and were married over 8 beautiful years before he suddenly dropped the bomb one night over dinner. He asked for a divorce and then, later, I found that there was another woman involved who divorced her husband for mine! He, to this day, says she has nothing to do with him wanting a divorce even though he met her just two weeks prior to his insensitive request! All our friends and family have been shocked by this. Our marriage was very good and very compatable and very full of passion for one another. I KNOW I was not living a lie.
However, this entire time he has gone back and forth claiming that he did the wrong thing and got caught up in it, and that he should have just left her as a friend because he's still in love with me and misses me and our 10 year old daughter.
My question is...should I take him back?
I know, in the end I will follow my heart and I am extremely concerned for my daughter who is very sad that her daddy left. (She does not know about "the other woman.") It has been the toughest road ever. I love him but I am furious about this and unsure of him, and do not want this to happen again. I know I can get passed it in time and with work, but do I really want to? The main reason to concider having him back is for our daughter. Have any of you gone through this before and had him come back? If so, what happened? Have any of you gone through this and refused him a return?
Love ya ladies!
I got tears this morning becuase i felt like it was happening to me AGAIN... No one can say they know how you feel unless it has happened to them. If you ever need to talk,,, you can email me. I would love to share my story... As for my opionion on you taking him back. If it is the first time... maybe... But i stayed for several and as much as i loved him he never changed. Once i stayed he just did it again and again. weirdly enough i do feel like he loved me and still does. But i finally left and married again after 13 years. He and I are still friends and he continues to treat others the same way. I will always love him and so will you, but you have to love yourself too. Your children need you and when your being cheated on your NOT there for your kids. I dont think they think about that. I am so sorry and hurt for you..... hope everything works out. Lisa [email protected]
I would say no, don't take him back! Why did he have an affair in the first place! If he did it once he might do it again, and will you live being insecure the rest of your life? I think, you can do great things and help your daughter through life without having her father in the same house! If you take him back and it happens again, you will be going through the same pain again and again! He must face reality and feel the consequences for his actions!
It might seem harch to you, but I went through something like that! If you are interested email me: [email protected]
Good luck
Debbie,
I would say no. You will never be able to trust him. Of course you love him and want him back for your daughters sake but, don't you think you are worthy enough to have someone be faithful to you? If he is going to do that to you, that just proves how much he doesn't love you or respect you. Do you think he would take you back? Probably not.
Good luck,
Jo Ann
Wow, girlfriend I don't know what you should do! This is one of those situations that there are just no standard rules that apply. Of course it should have never happened but now you must figure out what is the best course for your life. Do you guys have a church home? Sometimes going to talk with a Pastor or counseler can really help put things back in perspective. I would say that your husband needs to make it clear that he is turning completely away from the other woman permanetly. I know you said you can get past it in time, but the key here is forgiveness. You will have to forgive him by faith and allow God's love to work through you and restore your heart to your husband. This whole messy business will really be an assignment for God. There just isn't enough human goodness to patch it up. So my vote is turn to God for wisdom and do what you feel He tells you. I am so sorry this happened in your life. Remember, whatever looks so bleak for man is a great opportunity for the Lord to show up and do something awesome! I wish you all the best and just hang in there!!!!!
I am so sorry that you are going through this! Wow. I would have to say that there is no way that I would take him back. For so many reasons...
Your dd will find out about this someday. What message do you want to send to her? You can show her that this is ok or you can show her that this is unacceptable. It needs to start with this generation. My husband was the child in this situation. He found out when my daughter was born three years ago. (He was 24 yrs old at the time. The affair had accured 9yrs earlier and his father stayed until she kicked him out 1yr later, to move the other man in.) He will never forgive his mother and has lost respect for his father for allowing her to stay. She ended up marrying the man that she cheated with. We could do the math when they told their stories of their relationship, so we always had a suspicion. That marriage lasted 9 years until he cheated on her, and then told my husband about it. The children always find out. Your reaction will dictate how she views this situation as an adult. Give her strength by showing her your strength.
Now back to the crime issue. I agree 150%. This should be criminalized. Yes, you have been emotionally abused. Do not stand for it another day. On top of that, this man knowingly exposed you to all kinds of diseases without your knowledge. That in any other capacity would be considered assault. I have made it clear that if this were to ever happen in my relationship, DH would be the first man charged criminally for this act. I really do not understand how it is not criminal. There ought to be a law. Anyone have any idea how to get a law passed? Seriously. I would love to be a part of jailing these men and women that think that this is ok to pass diseases to unsuspecting loved ones, not to even begin to mention the emotional effect to the partner and the rest of the family. There needs to be accountability. He disregarded your family, your feelings, and your health. He stole time and money from your family to see this woman. If he could expose you to this, he does not care for you the way that you deserve.
I wish you the best of luck. I am so sorry that you are going through this.
Debbie,
I would say the both of you should go to counseling and maybe a marriage retreat sponsored by the church and let him in little by little and with certain conditions. Let him know that he will have to win your heart again. If at any time during this process you're not confident in his committment you need to be honest with yourself and quit. Don't do anything for your daughter's sake. You would not want her to live with a cheating husband, and when she grows up she will understand. It's important that if the both of you go to counseling that it is a private, intimate thing, don't share the details with the family. Not everyone is going to agree you decision (what ever it will be)and you do not need the added pressure of other's opinions. You will know from the conseling sessions and the retreat if he is sincere about repairing and respecting your marriage. Good luck!
There's nothing hard and fast to tell you except that you do need counseling, whether you do it together or you have to seek it alone.
I'm a firm believer that people do what they want to do and that it really is simple. We complicate it with emotions and what-ifs and what we hope the potential is. I don't mean to sound harsh, but your marriage was not as solid as you thought it was before he met this woman. Maybe he wasn't gonna leave, but he wasn't happy. This woman has probably opened him up to the possibility of something different, new motivation. Sometimes they think it's easier to leave and start over with someone else than to make changes where they are. Chances are that he saw that you were fine with things the way they were, and he didn't want to upset the apple cart by changing your relationship. If you're honest with yourself, you might see where he maybe did some passive-aggressive things to get your attention, things that you maybe blew off because you thought that he was just being silly or that it was his problem that he needed to get over. I guess my point is that rarely does someone get blind-sided with this news. We don't always realize that it's at this point, but we know that something isn't right. It's a shame that a more relevant conversation can't be had before the "D" word comes up.
If you want your husband back, you need to realize the part that you might have played. There's no excuse for breaking your trust, but this is what it took to get your attention. If you want to have a marriage with him, you'll need to commit yourself to having your eyes and ears open. Honest communication isn't just speaking honestly, it's also listening honestly. Also, be honest with yourself. If you go into it thinking that you're in it for your daughter, then you'll keep getting what you've got. Is your daughter really better off with things like that? (Hindsight should be 20/20. What do you see?)
Now, that said, he's gonna have to make some decisions, too. He'll certainly need to stop seeing her, period. It's a deal-breaker if he refuses. Let your therapist help you set up an accountability system, something reasonable. In this state, you'll either be too controlling or leave too much of it to him. You need a third party involved. The therapist will help you to set terms for him to regain your trust. At some point, though, you'll also need to regain his. There was a breakdown in there, and he stopped being as open with you, coming to you with his interests. Your relationship is growing, and each of you responded to it differently, neither healthy. You're not the same people who got married eight years ago. It's time for you to get to know each other again and see if you're up to living together. Keep in mind that you only control your behavior, so the best way to work on your marriage is to work on yourself.
I hope that this works out with each of you feeling healthy and whole, whether together or not. I hope that your daughter is already in therapy.
This is an extremely hard situation to deal with! I personally have not been through this, but can only imagine. If he is willing, you BOTH need to find a Christian marital counselor who can counsel you in the right direction. Obviously, God intends for us to stay married once we've committed and exchanged vows, but adultery is not tolerated. If your husband is unwilling to go to counseling to correct what has already been damaged, I believe that you should at least go for yourself in order to being the healing process.
Persoannly, I would make him complete a marriage counselling program with you first and also follow thru with any recommendations that she / he has for your husband to do also. You owe that to your daughter and yourself so that his behavior is not repeated. Good luck.
I SO feel for you -- it must be so hard to see your daughter suffering and to want so badly to fix it, while also so much wanting things back as they were before the bomb for yourself.
I don't know the name of this exactly, but a friend of mine used a kind of separation contract with her husband where, supported by a good couples counselor, they made a contract aimed at healing the relationship if it could be healed. I am quite sure that this contract had two key items -- they didn't live together, and they agreed not to see other people. I wish I knew the name of the book that they used -- I can find out if you are interested. But maybe the main point is just that I think this should work the same way with an adult partner as it should with a child -- if my daughter has misbehaved and says she is remorseful and she won't do it again, I don't restore her tv-watching rights or swim classes until she has amended the behavior and kept it amended for awhile. I have started to say to her "show me the money!" I want her to pay up front, then she gets the positive consequence. But I don't accept checks or credit cards -- I don't restore tv-watching or swim classes because she tearfully PROMISES never to hit me or call me a name again, or promises to clean her room. I only restore them after weeks of being treated kindly, or weeks of a clean room. It isn't that I treat her meanly or coldly or rub it in -- I try to be kind and respectful always -- but CONDITIONS don't change on my end until conditions have changed on her end, and stayed changed. Well, okay, that's an exaggeration about what a hard-ass I am. But I do get SOME good behavior up front before giving benefits. In my opinion, your husband needs to be out of the house and he needs to decide what he is doing with this other woman, AND what he is going to do about himself. If he still is claiming his decision to divorce you two weeks after taking up with someone new was about his unhappiness with YOU, that is something he needs to look at, in my opinion -- that very claim is surely dishonest and it blames YOU for his crummy behavior.
Okay -- I need to breathe. I'm really mad at your husband!!! But I think before you make any decisions, he needs to make some. Is he still seeing this woman? If so, he's already making a decision -- one you can't change. He is choosing her over you, even if he does sometimes beg YOU to somehow repair the damage he has done and is continuing to do. If he is not seeing her anymore, but still minimizing her role in his decision to divorce you, he needs to reflect on that. here you have a lot of power -- sometimes it is very useful to just take people at their word, not because they are being truthful, but because the lies people tell usually put them in a more difficult position than the truth would. If he still claims he wanted out due to unhappiness in the marriage, that's actually a much bigger claim that is going to be harder to resolve -- if he was so unhappy and didn't let you know he was unhappy, what makes him think coming back now will make him happy, and how can you ever trust his seeming love and happiness with you when apparently he is so good at covering up his misery? HE needs to figure out an answer for that question, you don't.
Anyway -- I think the real answer to what will happen in the marriage must lie with him, and it has to do with whether or not he can persuade you somehow that he is trustworthy now, when he behaved in a catastrophically untrustworthy way that did great and possibly irreparable harm to you and to his daughter. What is HE going to do to change whatever it is that made him do that? And can you hold firm to make sure he is never welcome back into your bed until he in some way gives evidence that he has resolved whatever it is in HIM that made a person he'd known only two weeks seem worth throwing away 11 years of commitment and the happiness of his child for. For you, if you decide that the thing that made him act so compulsively has to do with sex/romance addiction, there are meetings in Houston for a group called Co-SA, which is folks who are in or have been in relationships with sex addicts -- you might benefit from that even if the marriage ends, because this has obviously (understandably) wounded you deeply. The meetings are weekly and free -- I think there is at least one that meets at St. John the Divine on Westheimer.
Hmm -- not sure why I'm so intense over this -- maybe because my parents divorced. Please feel free to take what you like and leave the rest!!
Margot
Debbie, I have been through almost exactly what you have been through, but he left instead of me. We had been married 12 years too, had three children and I was pregnant with our fourth when the floor seemed to break through. But you must stand your ground! You must first of all love yourself and then your child. You can't truly love y our child if you don't turly love yourself. Don't do it just for the child(ren). It's abuse, it may not be physical abuse, but it's abuse to allow anyone to trample over your heart or your child(ren). If you allow your husband to come back and forth, back and forth, what message are you givbing your heart and your child? As my pastor says in a relationship you should never allow it to become toxic; meaning the party that is wrong is causing abuse. Abuse is toxic, when something is toxic it doesn't just go away. It has to be filtered and cleaned. Is your husband really ready to come home, if so, you all find a wonderful counselor that you both mutually agree upon. Stqay in the counseling sessions until it is complete. If you then really feel like he's ready to come home then do so. He must show sincere change and be willing to be treated and cleaned before he walks back in that door and start a new life back with you. My children are fine. I never remarried and all of my children(three boys and one daughter) ARE VERY SUCCESSFUL. Two are grown and the other two are 15 and 13. They all have very high self-esteem and they love me and they love their daddy, even though he's now deceased. You must love yourself first, then your children. Let your family be a strenght to you and your daughter. Don't hang on to him mentally let him go for real and if he's really changed his heart will be back to you and you only. Pray and stand strong. He needs this tough love! You are a queen made by God.
Dear Debbie,
I think you already know the answer to your question. How many times will he continue to do this to you. You deserve better and so do your children. NEVER stay in a relationship just for the kids. My parents tried to and it affected us more in a bad way. A good marriage should include trust & loyalty, neither of which you have. When a child sees a loveless relationship, they think that's how it is for everyone. In our family we don't give second chances when it
comes to cheating. As far as I'm concerned, that is the worst
thing anyone could ever do. It you want to fool around then don't be married. You need to find someone who will love you & you only for who you are. Your husband didn't know how lucky he was. Good luck & I'll say a prayer for you! By the way - there are good ones out there. I've been married to mine for 28 years now & we are both totally committed to each other.
Cindy
NO!!!! If he did once, he will do it again. He is playing you and wanting to have you as a safety net if the new relationship doesn't work.
I know of more than one "perfect marriage" where the husbanad had successfully hidden his affair for months. The wife believed that everything was fine and was like you blindsided by his announcement. In one case, he even had his wife convinced that he was coming back. Then when he got back, he was engaged to marry the other woman.
Your daughter probably knows the truth. Even younger children can pick up things that you try to hide from them.
You need to be careful letting him back into your bed. No telling what kind of diseases he has been exposed to.
Counseling might help, but cheaters always cheat.
no no no no once a cheater always a cheater ,she's gone now he needs to replace her NO NO NO
Lanette
(((hugs))) What an awful situation! This is hard for me to say but you need to hear it, he's abusing you. By going back and forth like this he is manipulating you and it's very abusive. My ex did this to me and even told me that there will be other women but he will always come home to me. I accepted that because I loved him and wanted to be with him. But when I finally left him, after I started healing I noticed all the other abusive things he did and just couldn't see while in the moment.
Abuse can come in many forms. He doesn't have to hit you to be abusive. If he has done this for 2 1/2 years, he'll keep doing it. This is not just a midlife crisis. would I take back someone who had a one nighter? you bet. I might even take him back after a short affair. But 2 1/2 years and even blatantly rubbing it in your face then stringing you along saying he still wants you....that's abuse.
My prayers for you.
Sarah, who has had many abusive relationships
Debbie, I write this note with sorrow in my heart for you and your situation. I am sorry that this bomb landed on you and at such a bad time, but then again is that kind of news ever received at a 'good time'? Please know that I write with humility, love and compassion in my heart for you and your family.
I have not personally received that news as a spouse, but was a child in a marriage that had infidelity in it for the full 12 years of my parents marriage. I'm 36 years old now so I've had many years to contemplate my parents marriage and divorce. So in light of those quick details, I would say resoundingly YES TAKE HIM BACK. There are many reasons I feel this way and this strongly.
The first is that God is a forgiving God. It appears that you have Him in your life and He's the God of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 100th chances when it comes to us as Christ-followers. And He asks us to forgive others like He's forgiven us (Colossians 3:12-14). And yes you are right....you do have the ability 'only with God's help' to take Him back, work it out, and please don't have your 10 year old experience the long-lasting pain and consequences of a broken marriage. I was 9 years old when my parents divorced and 10 when it was final. It hasn't 'ruined me' and it wasn't 'my undoing' but it has been difficult. I challenge you to do the right thing, stay the course, fight the fight, and in the end give God ALL THE GLORY!! It's the heart of God that no man should separate what He has joined together (Matthew 19:6). And may the following be said of you - 2 Timothy 4:7-8 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.
Please allow God to work in your heart, your mind, and in your marriage...in closing Ephesians 3:13-21 says it beautifully (the apostle Paul speaking)...13 I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.
A Prayer for the Ephesians
14For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
May God continue to bless and keep you!! Raquel
NO! dont turn back...
you gave yourself your own advice..your kids...I love my kids, god.. God is always with me and I'm a fighter. Life goes on!
Debbie I know this is the hardest decision you will ever make but i truly believe that if you want to have a happy life and be able to truly teacher your daughter self respect and self esteem you need to leave your husband. You will always have doubts and never have trust again. your daughter may not know about it now but may in the future and she is going to want to know that her mom is a strong woman - she needs you to be her role model. I know it will be hard but think about how you will feel in 2years if you are still with him and wondering what he is doing everytime he walks out the door.
I cannot begin to understand how you feel, but I will pray for you and your daughter for the strength to make it through a very difficult time! I would be a little suspicious as to why changed his mind about "being unhappy" with you then, and now it is ok for him to want to come home. Why, is he was SO unhappy. Men can be VERY selfish. Again, I pray for you and your family, God does not give you anything you cannot handle, and what does not kill you makes you stronger!